Sept. 25, 2010. Update 1. Local foods purchases since July 11, 2010

The Innovation Kitchen is becoming a great local foods asset and a fun economic development story to tell.

In the past, due to limited facilities and budgets, many ingredients in the Hodan Center’s wonderful Farmhouse Recipes line, as well as foods purchased for commercial processing and catering had to be sourced through traditional commercial food sources.

Now that the kitchen is open, many of the foods formerly imported from distant growers are now sourced within our region. New processing projects have also emerged creating new purchases from growers in our region.

This is a tally from the white board in the kitchen meeting room at the end of this week:

Purchased from regional growers since July 11, 2010:

2,400 pounds of rhubarb

3,800 pounds of pumpkins

3,000 pounds of squash

400 pounds of cucumbers

- about to be delivered – 3,000 pounds of broccoli

This is a great local foods / economic development story. It's creating jobs in Iowa County and across our region. The Innovation Kitchen is helping to attract and circulate money back into our local farms and the communities they support.

This really is a fun story to tell people. What is remarkable is all the other important stories that are emerging from the kitchen at the same time.

And the Innovation Kitchen has only been open for 10 weeks.


The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen